March 2nd Meeting Recap

Our inaugural meeting couldn’t have gone any better. It exceeded all my expectations and it filled my heart with so much love and pride! We had approximately 90 kids present at the event and many more members who sent their money with friends or family, which was very impressive. The group of kids were amazing, very respectful and full of enthusiasm for what we are doing. The Valley Ridge Golf Course was a spectacular venue, Christopher Cool entertained the kids with his wonderful magic show and I Love Craft & Sweet provided delicious cupcake treats for all the tiny bellies in the room.

Charities

The 3 chosen charities for the evening were:

1. KidSport – Callie Cardiff spoke for this charity.

Callie, being one of our youngest members (5yrs) did a great job, we are all so proud of her for stepping up to the podium with her Mom and answering a few questions about her charity. KidSport believes that every child should have the opportunity to play organized sports and they make this happen through financial support as well as providing equipment etc.

2. Calgary Humane Society – Olivia Harbourne spoke for this charity.

Olivia is 12 years old and she came well prepared to the meeting. She spoke from the heart and shared her personal story of visiting the shelter and adopting a pet and what that meant to her. The Calgary Humane Society never say no and they never turn an animal away no matter what the circumstances are. Their mission is to help as many animals as possible and they feel that starts with educating people about being compassionate to animals.

3. Feed the Hungry Calgary – Simona Sedgwick spoke for this charity.

Simona is 7 years old and she was a little sweetheart who talked about feeding the homeless in our city. She told us that she always has a meal on the table and she wished everyone else had that as well. Feed the Hungry provides a sit down dinner each Sunday night for Calgary’s homeless and low income population at St. Mary’s Parish Hall.

After the 3 presentations the kids took out their voting ballots. We could see their excitement in getting to make an important choice on their own, they all felt proud of that voting ballot. It ended in a very close vote but the Calgary Humane Society received the most votes and they will receive the kids group donation. We are looking forward to going to the shelter with Olivia to present them with the big cheque and our group donation. We will have photos to share with you after the official presentation.

In less than 1 hour our great group of kids managed to raise $1,170 (we had a total of $1,110 at the event but have had a few more kids that couldn’t attend still want to make their donation). We will accept donations for 1 more week if there is anyone that still wants to contribute, please message me to make arrangements.

We were also fortunate enough to have a few door prizes and four lucky kids took home a $15 Chapters/Indigo card. We want to give a huge thank you to the volunteers who helped us make the event run smoothly.

I am hoping to have our next meeting date and location confirmed this week so stay tuned for further details. We are looking at the end of May/beginning of June and then we will take the summer off and reconvene in September.

I also promised that I would put together a wish list of the items that parents could help with:

donation to print the big novelty cheque

donation to print a stand up banner to have at meetings

door prize donations

donations of treats/snacks when the venue allows

someone to take photos/videos at the events

being a volunteer who can be called upon to help with registration, collecting/tallying the votes etc.